(PHOTO: A3 supporters at
the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge, April 17, 2012, exactly 40
years after Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox were put in solitary
confinement at Angola State Prison.)

We're holding great
hope for Judge Brady's ruling on Albert's case and also for the ruling
that could come any day for Herman from Judge Jackson. Until then- we
redouble our efforts to ensure that this travesty of justice will never
again occur.

King is traveling to Philadelphia to take part
in their 9/17 Rally Against Solitary and then back to the United
Kingdom for multiple events. Supporters are as always, busy making
films, writing articles, posting commentaries on social networks,
visiting Herman and Albert. It is time for justice for the Angola 3
and the far too many more prisoners enduring extended solitary
confinement in American gulags.

Professor Bell pulled together our first ever Angola 3 Prayer service in Baton Rouge a couple of months ago (view the program and photos from the service) and we're working with National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) to see if we can collaborate on bringing information regarding solitary to the religious community in the south.

We hope our readers will sign the NRCAT and Amnesty petitions and spread the word: End solitary confinement and free all political prisoners!

Albert Woodfox Legal Update: Still Waiting for Transcripts from May Evidentiary Hearing

Unfortunately,
as often happens once the overburdened courts get rolling, the only
legal headline is delay. Albert is still awaiting the transcripts from
his May hearing and consequently the submission of final briefs has
been indefinitely frozen. We will keep everyone updated as soon as the
legal ball is rolling again. Meanwhile, now might be a good time to
drop a line to Albert letting him know he is still in our minds as he
patiently awaits his fate.

The
A3 coalition has self-produced an edited, eight-minute video of the
this past April's press conference on the 40th anniversary of Herman and
Albert's placement in solitary confinement.

As previously
reported, on April 17, 2012, Amnesty International was joined by a
delegation of supporters, holding a press conference at the Louisiana
State Capitol building in Baton Rouge, LA, and hand delivering to
Governor Bobby Jindal's office the petition initiated by Amnesty
International demanding the immediate release of the Herman and
Albert from solitary confinement.

Governor
Jindal refused to meet with the delegation despite several attempts
made by Amnesty International to contact him in the weeks leading up to
the petition delivery. Jindal ultimately referred the issue to the
Department of Public Safety and Corrections. In response, the following
month, Amnesty launched a new online petition directed to the
Secretary of that department, James M. LeBlanc, still calling for
Albert and Herman's immediately release from solitary.

PHOTO:
Campaigners handing over a petition signed by more then 67,000 people
in over 125 countries to the Governor of Louisiana, 17 April 2012.

Robert King Connects with UK Activists

In July, Robert King was in London to speak at Amnesty Intl's screening of the UK film about the Angola 3, entitled "In the Land of the Free,"
While there, King met with Hamja Ahsan (in photo to the right, with
King), the brother of Talha Ahsan, imprisoned since 2006 without any
formal charges, and fighting extradition to the US on grounds that the
US tortures prisoners with long term solitary confinement.

King also met with Aviva Stahl from CagePrisoners.com,
a London-based human rights organization that is committed to defending
the due process rights of detainees of the War on Terror. King's extended interview with Stahl has been published here.

.

This August, both Ahsan and
Stahl were interviewed by Angola 3 News, further examining Talha Ahsan's
case, as well as the joint appeal he is participating in to the
European Court of Human RIghts. Following the Court's ruling against
their appeal in April, they are now appealing to the Court's Grand
Chamber, with a decision expected this month regarding whether or not it
will even be considered. Read the full interview here.

Law Professor Angela A. Allen Bell's Law Journal Article about the Railroading of the Angola 3 into Solitary

(PHOTO: Prof. Bell speaks at A3 Prayer Service on June 24 at Rose Hill Baptist Church.)

The Summer 2012 issue of the Hastings
Constitutional Law Quarterly features an article entitled "Perception
Profiling & Prolonged Solitary Confinement Viewed Through the Lens
of the Angola 3 Case: When Prison Officials Become Judges, Judges Become
Visually Challenged and Justice Become Legally Blind," by Angela A.
Allen-Bell, a professor at Southern University (read the full article here).

Professor
Bell meticulously documents how the Angola 3's continued placement in
solitary has been facilitated by a fundamentally meaningless review
process, arguing that "when prison officials stop acting as
administrators and effectively begin handing down sentences, they, for
all practical purposes, become judges. The Separation of Powers Doctrine
prohibits prison officials from acting with this authority.". While
noting that the A3 case is part of a broader epidemic of human rights
abuses in US prisons, Bell also proposes concrete solutions for making
prison authorities more accountable in their use of solitary
confinement.

Following the release of her article, Angola 3 News
interviewed Bell about her interest in the A3 case, the legacy of
slavery and why she thinks prison authorities still feel so threatened
by what Angola Warden Burl Cain identified as "Black Pantherism." Read
the full interview here.

Angola 3 Coalition on Freedom is a Constant Struggle with Kiilu Nyasha

A
time to embrace the principles of unity and resistance, Black August
had its origins in the "Black Movement" behind California prison walls
in the 1960s, led by George Jackson, W. L. Nolen, James Carr, Hugo
Pinell, Kumasi, Howard Tole, Warren Wells, and many other conscious,
standup brothers who ultimately made it safe for Blacks to walk the
yards of California's racist gulags. As the decades passed, the
tradition of honoring our fallen freedom fighters - sparked by the
August events described below -- was expanded to include commemorating
revolutionary wars of resistance and self-determination, such as
Harriett Tubman's Underground Railroad and the Haitian Revolution of
August of 1791 culminating in the first Black Republic of the world.

End the Use of Shackles on Pregnant Women

An
urgent online action campaign has been initiated asking California
Governor Jerry Brown Governor Brown to sign AB2530, a bill that will
"strengthen protections on the use of restraints on pregnant women in
correctional facilities. Two prior versions of this bill passed both
houses of the legislature without a single 'no' vote. Last year, under
pressure from the California State Sheriffs' Association (CSSA) and both
Alameda and Sonoma County sheriffs' departments, Governor Brown vetoed
the bill. AB 2530 addresses Governor Brown's veto by clarifying language
and prohibiting the most dangerous forms of shackling. Take action here.

Announcing the release of their July
report on extrajudicial killings, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
states: "A human rights crisis confronts Black people in the United
States. Since January 1, 2012, police and a much smaller number of
security guards and self-appointed vigilantes have murdered at least 120
Black women and men. These killings are definitely not accidental or
random acts of violence or the work of rogue cops...The corporate media
have given very little attention to these extrajudicial killings. We
call them "extrajudicial" because they happen without trial or any due
process, against all international law and human rights conventions.
Those few mainstream media outlets that mention the epidemic of killings
have been are unwilling to acknowledge that the killings are systemic -
meaning they are embedded in institutional racism and national
oppression.

Over 40 years ago in Louisiana, 3 young black men were silenced for trying to expose continued segregation, systematic corruption, and horrific abuse in the biggest prison in the US, an 18,000-acre former slave plantation called Angola. In 1972 and (more...)

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